By Gregory Moore

DALLAS, Texas — You know what’s troubling watching this year’s NBA Finals?

Believing in all the hoopla that finally LeBron James, the prodigal son, the ‘chosen’ one, will bring a title back to “the Land” after some four decades.

It’s hard to have any faith in him or the Cleveland Cavaliers because there isn’t a fire in the belly to get it done.

Yeah, sure. We’ve seen flashes of what this team could be but after Friday night’s loss, how can anyone with a straight face say, “Oh man, relax. They gonna win the next three straight. Watch.”

Watch? Watch what? An ass whooping that will be one of the most virally seen events in the current space/time continuum?

Come on man. Seriously?

Let’s just look at why the narrative on James right now is about being a talker and not a doer when it comes to winning titles.

Cavs 2.0 Reboot

I hate to say it but can anyone tell me what’s the difference between the Cavs of 2007 and the past two renditions over the last two years?

The knock then on James was that he didn’t have a supporting cast to get the job done. That’s ironic because that is the EXACT same narrative in 2016.

Let’s be frank and earnest about this current team. They aren’t good enough to beat the Golden State Warriors and sadly, they never were.

Look at Friday’s game and you tell me. What did you see in that game that showed Cavs nation that this team can go into Oracle Arena and win Monday’s game and then turn around and win a pivotal home game six on their own floor?

Nothing.

The only thing that’s a little different is that they have been able to hang a few quarters here and there but in this current series, they simply are not stringing quarters together to stop their opponent.

ROLE PLAYERS JUST A BUNCH OF DUDES

Let’s do another comparison.

When LeBron was in Miami, he had guys who could be role players and they were good at their jobs.

Mike Miller, Jerome James, Udonis Haslim, and Mario Chalmers.

Those guys knew what they needed to do to help win games.

Throw in a guy like Ray Allen and what you had was a bench that knew what it took to win big games on the biggest stage.

When you coupled that with DeWayne Wade and Chris Bosh, James could be at his best because he had guys he could trust.

It was a team that was able to win fifty percent of their NBA Finals appearances.

Now let’s fast forward to last year for a minute.

Where was that supporting cast?

Kevin Love and Kyrie Irving were injured last year so they can’t be held accountable for that team’s losses to the Warriors.

But the guys that were there, Iman Shumpart, JR Smith, Tristian Thompson and others were there and they know that they needed to step their games up this year.

And through the Eastern Conference for this year, those games were elevated.

But this is the Finals man and what you did two weeks ago don’t work on this stage.

Let me now throw Love and Irving into this analysis.

Where are they on a consistent basis?

Well Love is too busy counting his discounted nuggets because even coming off the bench he hasn’t been this “dominant” player he was in Minnesota; and while Irving is very spotty but at least he’s trying to be a second scoring threat.

That group of role players aren’t of the same talent as what the Heat had. Two totally different groups of role players; two totally different mindsets on how to back up the star player.

But James picked this team; whether he wants to own up to it or not. It was his influence that placed these pieces on the roster. He wanted these guys.

Now he’s got them and these hand picked players are not living up to the potential of being role players that win titles.

They aren’t the guys like were with Miami.

They aren’t the guys that five time champion Spurs had during their run.

Or what Kobe had during his or what Michael had during his run.

They are not were close to that caliber and they may never be those kind of guys.

The King Needs to Accept Blame

At the end of the day, James needs to accept responsibility for not being the leader that he thinks he should be for this team.

When James was assertive in game three, we all saw a different team; a different mindset. The team responded by following their leader.

He gave orders.

He moved players into winning positions.

He led them to the win.

Game four? Yeah that was very reminiscent of what he looked like against the Dallas Mavericks in 2011.

He didn’t take any shots that were meaningful.

He didn’t assert himself when his team needed him to be assertive.

He simply was not the guy to get the job done.

And now this team is looking at trying to do something they simply can’t do; win.

Can this be accomplished? Can the Cavs win the next three games?

Right now, whether James and his team likes it or not, the only way to win a game in this series is to ball all the way out.

Whatever they did in game three, the should have been doing it in game four and they will need to do it in games five, six and seven.

Yet unlike what Golden State did against the Oklahoma City Thunder, I don’t see the Cavs having that kind of grit.

And it’s that lack of confidence that has me saying the following: if the Cavs lose the series, it’s all on James.

After all, who else should get the blame when your reputation is about performing on the biggest stage in the league?

Gregory Moore is a former sports columnist for several local, regional and national media outlets. He covered the NBA and the San Antonio Spurs from 1993 to 2010. He is now an IT virtualization engineer/architect in the Dallas/Ft. Worth area.